Located on Amory Street in Brookline, this handsome Arts and Crafts style residence dates to about 1908 and while clearly Craftsman in style, does appear to follow the horizontality and form of the Prairie School of architecture, popularized by famed architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. While the architect of this house is unclear, we do know that the first owners were Mr. Frank T. Partridge and his wife, Edith Stevens Partridge. The stucco house features a horizontal belt course, shallow hip roof with broad eaves supported by brackets, and elaborate entry and porches. The colors enhance the architecture of the home perfectly.
One of the many houses in the Cottage Farm-adjacent neighborhoods of Brookline, Massachusetts, is this great blending of the Tudor Revival and Arts and Crafts styles of architecture, which dominated residential architecture in the Boston suburbs in the early 20th century. This residence was built in 1906 for Mr. Frank Moseley and his wife, Martha Hawes Moseley from plans by architect Robert C. Coit. Covered in stucco siding and half timbering, the charming house evokes the countryside of England, right here in Brookline. After WWI, the house was owned by Ms. Lizzie Widger, a water color artist and member of Copley Society of Boston, and her husband, Samuel Widger, a cotton broker. The Moseley-Widger House looks as it did 120 years ago and is in a great state of preservation, thanks to generations of loving stewards.
This stately house on Powell Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, was built in 1906 for Charles H. Owens, Jr., and his wife, Nellie. Charles was a “house decorator”, who built the house next door just two years earlier before moving into this larger home in 1906. Both houses were designed by the architectural firm of Loring & Phipps, who Owens likely collaborated on commissions with in his career. The house is 2 1/2-stories with a shallow hip roof and is an excellent example of an academic interpretation of the Colonial Revival style. The principal facade has flush board siding with round-arched windows on the first floor along with a squat fanlight transom over the center entrance.
This lovely Colonial Revival style house on Powell Street in Brookline was built in 1904 for Charles H. Owens, Jr., an interior designer who just two years later, built another home next door that he would reside in with his own family. This house was rented to John R. Perry, who was also listed as a “decorator” in city directories and president of Perry, Lewis & Whitney, a design firm. The house (like its neighbor built two years later), was designed by the architectural firm of Loring and Phipps and was oriented southward to face the side yard. The Perry House features small projecting oriel windows, a broad gambrel roof, and an entrance portico supported by Tuscan columns.
By the end of the 19th century, Brookline’s connection to Boston via the streetcars opened the town up to suburban development unlike anything seen before. From this, Boston businessmen could move to the suburbs for more land and live in larger single-family homes while commuting to the city for work. This large house in the Cottage Farm neighborhood was built in 1899 on speculation and purchased by George and Annie Andrews, who two years later, built a stable on the adjacent lot. Architect Robert Coit, specialized in large suburban houses, primarily in the Boston-area suburbs, and showcased his design talents for this Tudor Revival home. Tudor Revival style ornament include the second story over-hangs supported on brackets, the diamond pane sash and casement windows, vergeboard with finials, and portico with steep gable.
Eclectic houses of the late 19th and early 20th centuries are my favorite as they showcase how architects of the time blend features and break the strict mold of academic styles. This example is found in the Cottage Farm neighborhood of Brookline and dates to 1905. Designed by relatively unknown architect, Alfred Lyman Darrow, who studied at MIT, before opening his own practice. The house was first owned by Hugh G. Brown, who founded the Brown’s News Company and the Hotel & Railroad News Company. The house exhibits half-timbering in the gable ends and decorative corbelled chimneys that derive from the Tudor Revival; the front porch parapet appears to derive from the Spanish Mission style; along with stucco siding and unique windows typical of the Arts and Crafts movement.
One of five houses built by developer Albert Jewell along Powell Street in the Cottage Farm neighborhood of Brookline, this residence stands out for its materiality and stately design. The house was designed by J. Williams Beal, an architect who trained at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then worked for McKim, Mead & White before opening his own business. The house was first purchased from Mr. Jewell by Grace and Edwin Kramer, who worked as superintendent for R. H. White & Co., the large dry goods store in Boston. The next long-term owner was Harry B. Duane, a wealthy grocer. The Kramer-Duane House is unique for the stone veneer at its facade, gambrel roof covered in slate, and varied window styles including: bay windows, dormer windows, and an eyebrow dormer window at the roof.
This house at the corner of Freeman and Powell streets in the Cottage Farm area of Brookline, Massachusetts, was one of the first to be built on Sears family land in the years following the death of the family patriarch, David Sears. In 1871, Dennison Dean Dana (1827-1899) purchased land here from the Sears heirs and constructed this Italianate house with three-story square tower. Dana owned the house through the 1880s, and by 1893 it had been acquired by Albert L. Jewell, a real estate developer who added the large veranda and a two-story addition to the house, and would subdivide the property, developing fashionable houses along Powell Street to the south. The house (while clad in asbestos shingles since the 1960s) is an important early residence in the neighborhood which is today, dominated by late 19th and 20th century architecture.
Roughwood is a historic estate house on Heath Street in Brookline, Massachusetts. The main residence and the various outbuildings on the grounds were designed by the Boston architectural firm of Andrews, Jaques and Rantoul, and built in 1891 as the summer estate of William Cox, a wholesale dealer in the footwear industry. Mr. Cox died in 1902 and the property was sold to Ernest Dane, the year before he married Helen Pratt, the daughter of Charles Pratt, a wealthy New York businessman and philanthropist. Mr. Dane was a banker who served as President of the Brookline Trust Company. The Dane’s owned the property for decades until the property was eventually purchased by Pine Manor Junior College in 1961. The estate house remained a centerpiece of the campus. In the early 21st century, Pine Manor College saw financial distress, and was saved by Boston College, who acquired the campus and its existing students as Messina College, which opened in July 2024 for over 100 first-generation college students. Architecturally, Roughwood is a high-style example of the Queen Anne/Shingle style of architecture. The mansion is built with a puddingstone and brownstone first floor and a second floor of varied patterns of wood shingles, all capped by a slate roof. The facade is dominated by towers and dormers and the great rustic entrance portico with dragon’s head brackets. To its side, a 1909 Tudor Revival addition served as a music room for the Dane’s family and while stylistically unique, is designed with impeccable proportions.
Besides the former Wright Carriage House (now the Soule Recreation Center), the only other extant building that was built on the grounds of the former John G. Wright Estate in Brookline, Massachusetts, is this structure, the historic gatehouse to the property. Built in 1907 at the same time as the manor house, the gatehouse was also designed by architects Chapman & Frazer and served as the entry to the expansive grounds with a room for the gatekeeper to sleep in overnight. The Tudor Revival style building is less ornate than the stone mansion, the half timbering and stucco work well to compliment the other buildings. While the formerly dark half timbering has since been painted a white, the building still maintains its character. While the remainder of the Wright Estate was subdivided and sold off by the heirs of next owner, wool merchant, Andrew Adie, the gatehouse remained and survived the destruction that befell the main manor. The old gatehouse was converted to a full-time residence and remains to this day.
The Soule Recreation Center in Brookline, Massachusetts, was originally the stable and carriage house on the John G. Wright estate. John Gordon Wright (1843-1912), was a Boston wool merchant who purchased farmland on this site in the 1890s and hired architects Chapman & Frazer , to design an estate house (since demolished), and this building to serve as a carriage house and stable for horses. The stone Tudor Revival style mansion house was complemented by the earlier wood-frame Tudor carriage house, resembling an English manor with grounds designed and laid-out by the Olmsted firm. In 1942, the property was purchased by the Rivers School (now located in Weston) and converted into classrooms and administrative offices for the private school. When the school moved to Weston, the Town of Brookline in 1961 bought property for recreational purposes. Sadly, in 1967, the mansion house burned down, but the carriage house and gate lodge remain as lasting remnants of a once great Brookline estate.
Found on Woodland Road in Southern Brookline, Massachusetts, this brick dwelling is one of a dozen-or-so whimsical Tudor cottages built there in the1920s and 1930s. The Barnard Gordon House, built around 1928, utilizes brick and stucco cladding with ornamental half-timbering, diamond pane leaded glass casement windows on the second story, and decorative half-timbering. The main attraction is the round tower with conical roof also serving as the entrance, resembling more of Rapunzel’s tower than a normal suburban home. We need more unique houses today like they built 100 years ago. Everything today feels so sterile and unwelcoming, maximizing interior layout at the loss to street presence.
A playful interpretation of a medieval English cottage, with its stucco cladding, half-timbering, weatherboards in the gable ends and ornamental well enclosure in the front yard, can be found on Woodland Road in Brookline. The whimsical cottage was built in 1928 for Arthur B. Bernard, the son of the president of the New England Leather Company in Boston’s Leather District. Arthur would follow his father’s footsteps and join the business himself. Architect and builder, Fred S. Wells of Newton designed and constructed the house (and others in the area in the same style). What’s your favorite part of this house?
The early decades of the 20th century were the golden years for suburban development in the Boston area. With personal automobiles better-connecting the city to lesser developed areas like Milton, Newton and Brookline, middle-upper class residents were able to relocate to the suburbs and build stately homes, typically in one of three architectural styles: Colonial Revival (most common), Tudor Revival, or Arts and Crafts (least common). This large house is located on Randolph Road in the Woodland/Heath area of Southern Brookline, and dates to 1928. The residence was constructed for Dr. Walter C. Miner, an orthopedic dentist, and his wife, Ethel and designed by the firm of Strickland, Blodgett & Law. The large house sits on a double-lot, and is notable for its symmetry, slate tile roof, and rough-faced stucco walls.
The Frederick & Arabella Holden House sits on Aspinwall Avenue in the Brookline Village neighborhood of Brookline, Massachusetts. Built in 1893, the excellently designed Shingle style dwelling was actually built on speculation by developers, and sold upon completion to the couple. Fred G. Holden (1858-1927) was a marble dealer who managed the Boston Marble Company and had connections in his home state, Vermont for the highest quality marble to sell around Boston, largely for building products and grave memorials. Arabella Proctor Holden (1859-1905) was born in Cavendish, Vermont, as the eldest daughter of Redfield Proctor, 37th Governor of Vermont and the founder of the Vermont Marble Company, the largest such company in the world. I could not find the architect of the house, so any more information, let me know. I’d love to solve the mystery!
Buildings of New England 